Plan Your Meetings

I’ve heard of flea-bag motels — the kind where there’s a coin-operated bed or boot marks on the door — but I always thought bedbugs were the work of someone’s hyperactive imagination. Kind of like the bogeyman, but for cheap travelers. C’mon, a scourge of insects that nest in mattresses and live off of human blood?

Imagine my surprise when I read this article about a bedbug problem plaguing New York City’s residences and hotels. In five years, reported cases of bedbug infestations in hotels went from two to 6,889. And those are 2007 numbers. If you’re not afraid of losing your lunch, check out these images of the damage the little suckers can cause.

The nasty creatures evidently are brilliant hitchhikers, traveling from place to place on clothes, linens, pillows and bags, and they can nest anywhere; one Advanced K9 Detective at a Five-Star resort found bedbugs in a $400 Bose radio. Gross!

So what’s a traveler to do? Heed this advice from Harvard University:

• Check bed linens, nightstands, bedposts and mattresses for evidence of bedbugs.
• Don’t bring your favorite pillow to a hotel unless it’s in a bedbug-proof, sealed pillowcase.
• Don’t store luggage or portable items near hotel beds.
• If you think you’ve been bitten, report it to the hotel management ASAP. Collect a sample if you can for analysis to be sure you weren’t bitten by lice, mites, mosquitoes or fleas.
• If you’re stuck in an infested room, pull the bed away from the wall or shelving and create a 2-inch band of Vaseline or mineral oil around the legs of the bed.